1. The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice for local communities, speaking for nearly 500 local authorities representing over 50 million people and spending £65 Billion a year on local services. It represents nearly all individual authorities in England and Wales and the diverse constituencies they contain. The LGA is promoting the case for democratic local communities which are prosperous, safe, healthy, environmentally sustainable, and provide equality of opportunity for all citizens.

  2. The LGA supports the retention, continuing use, improved access and development of allotments on the basis of their contribution to the achievement of a good quality of life and a sustainable future for all.

  3. Allotments as ecological assets—Surveys by local authorities show that allotments (even fully operational ones) can provide valuable wildlife habitats, such as foraging and nesting areas. They contribute to green corridors running through urban areas. Sensitive management of allotment sites could ensure that wildlife habitats are encouraged.

  4. Allotments as open space—Ensuring openness in the urban environment, areas free from built-development yet in productive use, is an important factor in securing a high quality urban environment.

Allotments contribute to this by their openness, their greenness and the access to land for cultivation they afford to local people. They are an important ingredient of urban green space, which might also include gardens and other areas of open land.

  5. Allotments as leisure facilities—Cultivating on allotment land is an important leisure activity. The increase in small households and the likely increase that will occur in the intensity of housing development to meet household growth projections could result in fewer people having access to private gardens. Allotment provision as a leisure asset may therefore be of increasing importance. Local authorities have a duty to provide allotments to meet demand. Leisure strategies adopted by local authorities should therefore address allotment provision and management.

  6. Allotments as an asset for community development—Allotment sites should be considered as assets which can be a focus for community development.

  7. Allotments and sustainable development—Local Agenda 21 strategies should recognise the value of encouraging allotment gardening in reducing and promoting healthy activity among all members of the community. The intrinsic value of allotment gardening as a source of food should also be recognised, especially where this contributes to the local economy via allotment shops.

  8. Allotments have met all of these purposes as towns and cities have grown during the last century. That they should continue to do so should be a particular policy objective for local authorities in promoting their leisure strategies, ecology and land use plans. However, there are three areas of concern surrounding allotment provision and maintenance which threaten allotment provision and use.

  9. Unclear legislation: The myriad Acts that constitute the legislative context for local authority allotment provision lead to confusion about what roles and responsibilities local authorities have and about how they discharge their function, to the detriment of allotment provision and maintenance. It is clear that there is a serious need for the allotment legislation to be reviewed in order that any possibility of ambiguity can be reduced and so that legislation is more relevant to modern leisure activities.

  10. Development pressure: The demand for housing to meet demographic and social changes in the population over the next 20 years is creating severe pressure in urban areas to increase the intensity of development and extend it onto open land within urban areas. Allotment sites are vulnerable to this and other development pressure in a number of ways. First, allotment sites provided from non-local authority sources can be sold for development, subject to planning permission. Secondly, local authorities may sell sites for housing development or earmark them for social housing provision. Thirdly, many allotment sites are located in inner areas subject to development pressure. Their isolation from green spaces, their sometimes poor soil quality, and the vandalism from which they may suffer, can impact on demand for them and so make them vulnerable to development.

  11. The loss of allotment sites may impact greatly where open space, greenness, ecological variety, community facilities and alternative allotment access is at a premium. It is important that planning policies recognise the places where the loss of an allotment site and its replacement elsewhere will create open space deficiencies, create access problems to alternative sites for local users, impact on the general quality of the urban environment and remove a community development asset. In other areas, ensuring that there is no net loss of allotment provision in the area when development proposals are made on allotment sites is an appropriate land use planning policy stance.

  12. The pressure on allotment sites for development is indicative of the problems that will be encountered in addressing the development needs arising from the debate on household growth. This pressure will be felt on other parts of the green frameworks of our towns and cities. Government needs to recognise and take into account at an early stage the value that such frameworks have for the quality, healthiness and sustainability of the urban environment. It needs to ensure their continued integrity and role.

  13. Local government financial constraints: Management and maintenance costs of allotments present a burden which many local authorities have sought to ease through the establishment of arms-length trusts. Where allotments are underused, there may be pressure on authorities to either close them down or divest themselves of their management. However, local authorities will retain the responsibility to ensure that allotment provision is adequate to meet demand. There is some concern that poor management and maintenance of allotments may affect their usage, leading to their loss and the creation of unmet demand. Local authorities need to retain an understanding of the reasons why delegated allotment sites are well used or underused, which will help them to establish the true extent of demand.

  14. It is clear that this issue is closely related to the lack of clarity about local authority roles, responsibilities and funding. In moving to a review of allotment legislation, the process would be usefully informed by a DETR research project to establish the extent of allotment supply, the nature of demand for them and the role of standards in allotment provision. It should also address management and funding issues.

February 1998